Importance
in Human Health

Magnesium (Mg)
is an important mineral needed for normal, day to day functioning of the
human body. Responsible for the regulation of over three hundred enzymes,
magnesium helps in the regulation of blood calcium levels, energy production,
and muscle relaxation. Mg is a part of the mineral structure of bones
and teeth. The bones act as a reservoir to maintain the correct extracellular
magnesium concentration.

A 2005 study, "What We
Eat in America", found that nearly half of all Americans age one
year and over had inadequate magnesium intakes.[1]
More than two thirds of teenagers, ages fourteen through eighteen, and
seniors over the age of seventy had suboptimal intakes. If
you put together all of the functions this important mineral is used for
in the human body along with the fact that most Americans do not get enough
from their diets, then logically there are potentially millions of people
in the U.S. walking around with multiple health symptoms directly attributable
to inadequate magnesium intake. Unfortunately, magnesium deficiency, along
with other vitamin and mineral deficiencies, rarely gets diagnosed.

Many clusters of deficiency
symptoms commonly occur concurrently in the same individual, such as:

Migraines

Heart disorders, including
mitral valve prolapse

Palpitations

Diabetes

Fibromyalgia

High blood pressure

Asthma

Insomnia

Anxiety

Depression

Tight muscles, including
TMJ

Tics and twitches

Yet all too often these symptoms
are diagnosed by mainstream health care providers as unrelated symptoms,
and treated with medications and surgeries that never solve the root,
underlying cause, which in many cases may simply be a magnesium poor diet.

One
ounce of almonds provides 19% of the DV of magnesium.

Intake
in a Standard American Diet Compared to a Whole Foods Diet

What types of diets are likely
to provide insufficient amounts of magnesium? Unfortunately, the typical
American diet of this century, filled with soda, white bread, filtered
water, snack foods and other processed foods is unlikely to meet the recommended
DVs for magnesium.

3. "Soft", filtered
water used for cooking and drinking, stripped of both impurities as well
as minerals.

The typical SAD diet in Table
1 below provides approximately 1900 calories a day and 192 mg of magnesium,
well below the recommended daily values (DV) for most age groups. Let's
compare this diet to a sample whole foods diet listed in Table
2, devoid of nutrient poor white bread and other processed foods and
see how the magnesium levels compare. The diet in Table 2 lists the kinds
of foods generations of our ancestors lived on, the kinds of foods people
still eat in countries where magnesium and other nutrient intake is high
and diseases such as cancer, high blood pressure and heart disease levels
are much lower than the U.S.

Both the SAD diet in Table
1 and the whole foods diet in Table 2 provide around 1,900 calories, yet
the whole foods diet provides 472 mg of magnesium compared to 192 mg for
SAD, a 245% increase. Think about it. You need magnesium for your teeth,
your bones, balanced blood pressure, diabetes prevention and over 300
important enzyme reactions. Which ones do you want to live without on
the SAD diet?

The diet in Table 1 is actually
even worse that it looks at first glance. Not only is it low in magnesium
intake, but because it contains coffee and other acid forming foods and
high levels of calcium, a magnesium antagonist, it is actually Mg depleting.
Coffee is particularly harmful because it is acid forming and stimulates
gastric acid secretion, which in turn depletes alkaline forming minerals
such as calcium and magnesium.[3]

Allergies and
Chemical Sensitivities

When lab rodents are deprived
of magnesium, a number of studies have found that they show signs of allergic
reactions. A 1980 study in France found that mice deprived of this important
mineral, compared to a control group, developed allergy like symptoms
including skin redness and increased scratching. White blood cells, and
histamine levels increased in an allergy-like crisis. [4]

Magnesium deficiency has been
implicated in allergies and allergic skin reaction in many studies on
humans, too. Variations of allergies, skin allergies, and raised
white blood cells have all been noted as features of many chronic disorders.

Anxiety and Psychiatric Disorders

Results from a 1994 study from
researchers in the United Kingdom show a strong association for more disturbed
and excitable patients to have abnormal (either high or low) Mg levels.
[5] The paper's authors thought that the patients
who seemed most disturbed may have some abnormality of magnesium metabolism. In
a related study, researchers reported in a 2009 study published in the
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry an inverse relationship
between Mg intake and depression and anxiety disorders. [6]
Low dietary intake of this important mineral correlated to increased levels
of anxiety and depression in the study subjects. In a 2012 study published
in the journal Neuropharmacology, researchers conducting tests on mice
found that low magnesium levels in the mice caused them to enter states
of hyper-excitability and enhanced anxiety.[6.1]

In 1998 study on rats by researchers
in Brazil, the animals had their thoracic aortas injured with balloons.
They were then fed diets with low, normal or high magnesium concentrations.
The rat aortas with the high magnesium diets healed better than the normal
and low diets.[7]

A continually growing body
of research shows that people with asthma are often low in magnesium and
that increased intake of the mineral is beneficial for asthma sufferers.
A 2010 study by researchers from the University of California, Davis and
Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington enrolled fifty-two participants
with asthma. The study participants were then split into two groups. One
group received supplemental magnesium and the other a placebo. Six and
half months later, at the conclusion of the study, researchers found that
the supplement group showed a marked improvement in lung activity as well
as the ability to move air in and out of their lungs.[8]
On a related note, a
1994 United Kingdom study reported on in the Lancet, notes that people
who have diets lower in magnesium have
more asthmatic symptoms and self reported wheezing.[9]

Multivitamin tablets and pills
often do not contain magnesium because it is a bulky mineral that makes
the pill or tablets very large, so manufacturers often just leave it out!
Yet multivitamins may contain many magnesium antagonists, i.e. vitamins
and minerals that lower magnesium levels in your body. Perhaps this is
why recent studies show that multivitamins usage is associated with asthma
and allergies.[10] On a personal note, when I used
to give our kids multivitamins when they were younger, their ears would
turn red, which I took to be a sign of an allergic reaction.

Attention Deficit Disorder

Magnesium in the treatment and prevention of attention deficit disorder
(ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is becoming
more and more mainstream. A growing body of research supports the idea
that significant factors causing ADD and ADHD are a lack of exercise and
nutritional deficiencies, especially those of magnesium.

In a 1997 study from researchers
in Poland, ninety-five percent of the children examined with ADD or ADHD
were magnesium deficient. [11]

Calcification
Of Soft Tissue Including Heart Valves

In a 1990 study published by
researchers from Czechoslovakia, eighty patients with soft tissue calcification
were treated with oral magnesium therapy. Seventy-five percent of the
patients were cured without any side effects or complication. [12]
In a study of mitral valves, researchers in Italy found that a lack of
magnesium played an important role in the the calcification of human heart
valves. In a chemical analysis of human heart mitral valves, when calcification
became massive, magnesium content appeared highly reduced. [13]

A growing body
of research indicates that low levels of magnesium may play a key role
in ever increasing cases of diabetes among Americans. Diabetes is currently
the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.

Two separate
studies by Harvard researchers, published in the journal Diabetes Care,
found that magnesium rich foods could reduce the risk of diabetes. According
to both reports, in general people in the U.S. do not consume the recommended
levels of magnesium, a major factor contributing to the increasing rate
of type II diabetes onset. Interestingly, while the researchers found
that magnesium rich foods helped prevent diabetes, multivitamins and magnesium
supplements did not help to prevent the disorder. [14]

"Magnesium is not limited
to improving bone health. There are some three
hundred bodily enzymes that require magnesium, which suggests that
magnesium is vital for most cells and tissues of the body." - from
an article on the American Chiropractic online site.

11.
Kozielec T, Starobrat-Hermelin B. Assessment of magnesium levels in
children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Magnesium
Research : Official Organ of the International Society for the Development
of Research on Magnesium [1997, 10(2):143-148] [Europe
MubMed Central Abstract]